May the odds be never in your favor
by cyanspark
Summary: Steve Rogers doesn't trust the boy who saved him—doesn't trust his laughter, his rage, his coldness. But James Barnes is his only shot at surviving this madness, so he has no choice but to follow him. (A Captain America x Hunger Games crossover.)
1. The Tribute

As soon as Steve Rogers hears his name being read out from that slip of paper, he knows he is a dead boy walking.

The entirety of District Twelve knows it, too. He can see it in the tears that slide down the faces of those who know him well, and the stunned pity in the expressions of those who do not. As he slowly walks to the front of the square, towards his death sentence, he catches sight of his friends—Sharon, looking as though she wants to murder someone, and Sam, Sam's actually stepping forward, his mouth opening to speak. He knows what Sam is going to say.

Steve locks gazes with him, frowns, and shakes his head.

For a second, he thinks Sam is really going to do it, to throw his life away in the Hunger Games for him. The thought fills him with so much anger he's not sure _what_ he would do. But Sam finally swallows and backs down, and Steve continues to the podium with a dead, dusty wind blowing into his face.

Gail Richards is the other tribute, a girl whom Steve knows but never became close to. She's done nothing but sob as soon as her name was called, and frankly Steve thinks he should also be crying like a baby at his imminent death; he's just too stunned right now to work up a normal reaction, or any emotion at all.

"Let's give a big round of applause to this year's tributes from District Twelve!" the Capitol woman announces, her voice audibly straining with false cheer. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor!"

There is no applause. There never is. It's ludicrous to pretend that a district would ever be happy about sending two children to their deaths. At that moment, Steve almost feels sorry for her, for the Capitol script that she has to stick to in the face of everyone's obvious distress.

Except he's feeling even more sorry for himself and Gail.

It doesn't really sink in until hours later, after they'd been escorted into the Justice Building and he makes an excuse to go to the bathroom. As he's staring at his skinny reflection in the mirror, it hits him, it really hits him, how nonexistent his chance of emerging from the Hunger Games alive is. How very _dead_ he is.

It's enough to make him want to lie down on the tile floor and never get up again.

* * *

When they finally let Sharon and Sam come see him before he leaves, Sharon doesn't say anything at first, just gives him a hug so crushing he actually can't breathe for a few seconds.

"You should've let me volunteer," Sam says, frowning.

Steve shakes his head as Sharon lets go of him. "What, so _you_ can die in the Games instead of me? There's no point."

"Damn _reaping_," Sharon snaps, rubbing her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand. "You were almost home free."

Almost. They are eighteen, after all; if they'd managed to pass this year's reaping, they wouldn't have had to worry about being chosen for the Hunger Games ever again.

Each year, Steve has watched the reaping with dread, with equal fear for both himself and Sharon and Sam. Either of them would've had a better chance at winning the Games than Steve, but that's not saying much when the Career tributes almost always win.

"Maybe I'll get lucky," Steve tries to joke, weakly. "Maybe they'll make it a desert or something this year and everyone will collapse of heat stroke."

The looks on his friends' faces tell him his sense of humor isn't appreciated.

He swallows thickly and puts his hands on their shoulders. "Just, um...don't forget about me, okay?"

"We won't," Sam says, eyes shining with tears.

"Never," Sharon whispers, leaning over to kiss Steve's forehead.

He almost loses it then, as the Peacekeepers escort his friends out. Because they were the ones who looked after him when they were all orphans, even though he was scrawny and sickly and no one believed he'd live past his twelfth birthday; because he almost thought he had something with Sharon, almost thought they could build a life together once the threat of the Hunger Games was past.

None of that matters anymore, because he's already dead.

* * *

Both he and Gail are silent on the train to the Capitol. He wishes he could say something to her, something like _I'm really sorry we both got chosen for the Hunger Games_, but it's hard to speak when his conversation points are limited to that and _wow, it really sucks that we're both going to die horribly in a few weeks._

It doesn't help things that Nick Fury, who's supposed to be their mentor, took one look at them, sighed, and told them bluntly that they had no chance of living past an hour once the Games started.

He was being honest. It still doesn't help.

There's only so much time Steve can spend wallowing in self-pity before he feels like he's going to go nuts, so when they arrive in the Capitol, he gladly seizes on the new sights to keep his mind off his impending death. Everything is so big and..._shiny_. Buildings made of steel and glass shoot toward the clouds as though they're trying to break through the sky, and Steve almost gets a crick in his neck from trying to figure out where they end. The wide, gleaming streets are filled with people, and he studies the Capitol citizens' strange, gaudy-colored hairstyles and fashion. He catches himself thinking that he wished he had his sketchbook so he could copy down the strange sights around him.

Then he starts thinking about how the Capitol has all this while people in District Twelve have to work day in and day out in the mines, until the coal dust has blackened their faces, and come home to run-down, cramped wooden houses, and there's suddenly a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.

The crowd cheers as he and Gail step off the train, as though they're some kind of celebrities instead of kids being sent off to die, and he stares back blankly, feeling detached. It's just all so..._unreal_. Why are the Capitol people cheering when he's about to die? He is whisked off to the Remake Center, and all he can think is why do tributes have to look their best before they get slaughtered? He listens to his prep team argue over how to "improve" him—a laughably impossible task considering he's been short, sickly, and underfed his entire life.

Somehow he finds himself cleaned up, dressed in a suit that's decorated all over with bits of some stone called obsidian to make it gleam, before he's led down to a chariot in the street. He's barely even noticed the sun set and sky deepen to dusky violet. Gail stands next to him in the chariot in a matching black obsidian-flecked dress. She holds on to his hand in a death grip, and he squeezes back, glad to have one familiar face in this strange crowd.

"The others," she says, nodding at the chariots at front of them as the parade starts to roll out toward the City Circle and President Schmidt's mansion. "They look, uh...nice."

Most of the other tributes' outfits are stunning, made from fabric he's never seen in his life. When he glances up at the screens hung up all around the streets, he sees the camera zoom in on the tributes from District One first, decked from head to toe in shimmering cloth accented with brilliant gems. The cheering of the crowd suddenly spikes, filling the air with wild screams as the camera switches to the tributes from District Two.

Both tributes are wearing outfits sparkling like mica-flecked granite. The girl's hair stands out like a crimson flame against the twilit sky, her face accented with iridescent eyeshadow and scarlet lipstick, unforgettable under the bright lights. The boy isn't as striking at first, but there's something roguishly handsome about his face and the windswept curl of his brown hair. Both are waving at the screaming audience with wide grins; the boy even winks and blows kisses every once in a while.

"Do you know who the tributes from District Two are?" Steve asks Gail.

"James Barnes and Natasha Romanoff," Gail answers. She adds, quietly, "Fury said they're the favorites to win this year, but no one knows who will come out on top."

Steve watches them until the screen switches to the tributes from District Three. The idea that the Career tributes, who are already almost guaranteed to win, seem to be _relishing_ this whole ordeal makes his fingers curl into fists.

* * *

He has nowhere near enough arm muscle to use a bow or a sword, and there is clearly no way he's going to learn how to throw a knife in three days. (Not that he doesn't try. One session of throwing knives later, none of his knives have even landed within a foot of the target.)

So Steve sticks to learning how to find shelter, start fires, and identify edible plants. It's not exactly useless information, but one look at the way James and Natasha spar in the training room and their deadly aim with throwing knives and arrows, and Steve knows all the survival skills in the world won't stop him from being a goner if either of them come after him. Just watching them makes him feel depressed, so he tries not to (though he can't help noticing the dirty looks the other Career tributes have been shooting their way, ever since the opening ceremonies.)

When the scores for their training demonstrations come out, he's not at all surprised to see James Barnes and Natasha Romanoff score elevens. Steve himself scores a three, and though it's below the average for non-Career tributes, he's surprised he managed to score any points at all.

After that, Fury coaches them diligently for the interviews, but he also makes it clear that they don't have much chance at winning over sponsors. "Barnes and Romanoff have tied them all up," he says grimly. "You two could deliver the interviews of your lives and still not sway a single sponsor to your side. I'm sorry."

"Do we even have to bother?" Steve points out. "I mean, well…"

"I don't think even having all the sponsors in the Capitol could help us," Gail finishes quietly.

Fury sighs. "Just don't say anything _too_ terrible up there."

Steve is set to go last, so he gets a chance to watch all the other tributes' interviews before him. Natasha Romanoff, dazzling in a sleek gray dress that seems to ripple under the light, enters the stage to warm applause, pausing to flash the audience a coy smile before she sits down.

"If looks could kill, I'm sure you'd slay the competition," Caesar gushes.

Her smile widens. "Oh, I can do much more than _look_ nice."

The crowd goes wild for her when her interview finishes—and it goes equally wild when James Barnes swaggers onto the stage, all cockiness and confidence.

"So James, I hear you're popular in the Capitol these days, especially among the women," Caesar starts off, after James has taken a seat.

James raises an eyebrow. "_Only_ the women?"

Laughter erupts from the audience. James glances at them, a mock scowl on his face.

"I was being completely serious!"

He's got the audience eating out of the palm of his hand, Steve realizes. Every expression, every gesture, every smile has the audience either swooning, laughing, or cheering him on.

"I'm sure you're looking forward to victory in the Games," Caesar prompts.

"Of course," James answers smoothly. "Can't disappoint the fans by having some two-bit tribute beat me, can I?"

The audience bursts into applause, half of them screaming his name. Steve's fingers curl into fists at his side. How could anyone look so _smug_ at the thought of killing the other tributes? It sickens him.

James Barnes leaves the stage with one last wave and a wink as the crowd chants "_James! James! James!_" The other tributes file past, one by one, until it's District Twelve's turn. Gail is pale and shaking, so Steve reaches over and grips her hand.

"Hey," he says, softly. "Don't worry. You'll be great. I mean, what's the worst that can happen?"

She looks at him, wide-eyed, a startled laugh suddenly escaping from her lips at his gallows humor. She squeezes back and gives him a small, nervous smile.

"Thanks," she whispers.

She goes on stage, answers Caesar's questions. And then it's Steve's turn. Wiping his clammy palms against the smooth fabric of his pants, he walks up to the stage, blinking against the sudden glare of the stage lights. When the harsh brightness settles, he realizes just how _huge_ the auditorium is, and how many thousands of pairs of eager eyes are following his every move as he settles gingerly into the seat.

"Steve," Caesar greets him, as warmly as he did for the other tributes. "You might not look like a threat, but I bet you have a plan to win the Games, don't you?"

Steve shrugs and smiles apologetically. "I don't know, I don't think the odds are really in my favor at all."

From the sudden silence in the room, he knows he's _definitely_ killed the mood.

Caesar, though, remains unfailingly cheerful. "I don't think I've ever heard such modesty from a tribute! Come now, Steve, surely you have some special skill that you've saving for the arena? The audience is dying for a clue here."

Steve tries his best not to sound annoyed. "The only 'special skill' I've ever had was attracting bullies from miles away."

The audience laughs, though he has no idea why. He wasn't trying to be funny.

"What?" Caesar squawks, with mock indignation. "There are actually people who would mess up that handsome face of yours?"

"Well, when you're the smallest, scrawniest kid in the district—"

"How did that make you feel?" Caesar interrupts.

Steve blinks. "Uh...bad? Getting punched in the head isn't _fun._"

The audience's laughter is starting to grate on his nerves.

"I'll bet you'd be glad to show them they messed with the wrong guy, won't you?"

"I don't like bullies," Steve admits, "but—"

"Well there you have it, ladies and gentlemen," Caesar calls, drowning out Steve's voice. "Steve Rogers, the little guy who could from District Twelve! Let's hear it, folks!"

And then the audience is clapping and beaming at him, and he honestly has no idea what just happened. He was only trying to be honest. How did he manage to become "the little guy who could" in the space of a few minutes? How did Caesar get an entire room full of Capitol citizens to applaud someone who was about to die horribly the next day?

He's not sure, but the whole thing makes his head spin and his chest feel tight. It's wrong, and it's not fair.

* * *

It's the night before the Games begin, and after lying in his luxurious bed restlessly for an hour, Steve finally decides that it's useless to try to get any sleep.

By this time tomorrow, he will be dead.

The thought hovers over his head like a dark cloud as he takes the glass elevator up to the roof. Somehow, he's not surprised to find Gail also there, sitting with her legs huddled to her chest.

"I guess this is it," she says in a quiet, defeated voice.

"Yeah," Steve says, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

She rubs her face and sniffs a little. "I just...hope it'll be quick," she mutters. "For my family's sake."

The thought of Sharon and Sam watching him as he slowly bleeds to death in the arena makes Steve feel sick.

"It's not _fair_," he says, through his teeth. "We have to get dressed up and then die because it's the Capitol's idea of _fun_. Even after—after us, they're just going to keep doing this every year, because no one can stop them."

Gail's eyes widen and she glances around the roof. "I really hope no one heard that."

Steve chuckles hollowly. "I mean, what can the Capitol do? Kill us _before_ the Games start?"

The corner of her mouth ticks upward, just a little. She holds her hand out, and Steve accepts it wordlessly. They sit on the roof, watching over the Capitol's brightly glowing lights in the night.

"Thanks for being here, Steve," Gail murmurs.

"No," he replies, "thank _you._"

Neither of them say anything, but Steve is glad for her company, and for the warm hand clasped in his. For just one night, it reminds him of home.


	2. The Career

"Fifty. Forty-nine. Forty-eight. Forty-seven…"

Steve squints against the harsh sunlight as he emerges from a transparent tube up into the arena, taking in the meadow ringed with trees around him. Supplies of all kinds—backpacks, plastic tarps, weapons—lie sprawled out on the grassy clearing in front of the tributes, spilling out from the black cone in the center. Fury's last words to them still echo in his ears.

_Ignore the supplies. There'll be a bloodbath there, and you want to get away from the fighting as fast as possible. Head for the woods instead._

"Twenty-five. Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Twenty-two…"

He turns his head to look at Gail, standing a few yards away to his left. She's angled herself toward the treeline and gives him a tiny nod. He nods back.

"Ten. Nine. Eight."

Steve casts a quick glance at the other tributes arranged in a circle around the cone. James, Natasha, and the other Careers are focused solely on the supplies.

"Five."

He's going to die.

"Four."

He's going to run.

"Three."

He doesn't want to die.

"Two."

He wants to live.

"One."

The gong sounds, and Steve is running, sprinting for the forest. His heartbeat roars in his ears; air burns his lungs with each breath. He doesn't look back, but he can hear dying screams and breaking bones and he—he doesn't want to die—

"Come on!" he yells at Gail as he runs to her side, grabbing her arm.

Suddenly she stumbles, letting out a scream.

"_Gail!_"

She falls, pulling him down to the ground. He sees the knife sticking out of her back, just before he raises his head to see the boy from District One—Brock, he remembers faintly, his name is Brock—several yards back with another knife raised in his hand, his eyes locked on Steve.

He's going to die.

He's too shocked to run, and what would be the point, anyway? Sunlight skitters along the blade of the throwing knife as he watches it leave Brock's fingers, watches it fly through the air, headed for his heart.

Out of nowhere, another knife knocks into it, causing it to spin harmlessly to the ground.

Steve stays there, frozen, not sure what just happened. Brock turns his head to the direction of the knife—

James Barnes barrels into Brock and wrestles him to the ground. The struggle lasts long, violent seconds until a knife flashes in James's hand. Descends. Brock gives a jerk and lies still.

James rises.

He's not laughing. He's not even smiling. The blood on his face only seems to make his blue eyes look emptier, cold as frozen steel. James steps toward him, and Steve scrambles backwards, aware of nothing except that hollow-eyed stare and the bloody knife in James's hand and the fact that he's never been so terrified in his life.

James opens his mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yells. "_Run!_"

Fear and adrenaline override his confused shock, and Steve bolts for the woods. He doesn't stop running until the sounds of the fighting have faded behind him, until his lungs and legs are burning with exhaustion and he stumbles to the ground, gasping for breath among the undergrowth.

And then he remembers Gail's body, and Brock's body, and all that blood.

Steve curls up on the ground and cries.

* * *

He's not sure how long he spends lying on the ground until a cannon booms across the sky, almost giving him a heart attack. Ten shots—ten tributes dead. One of them is Gail. Gail, with her warm brown eyes and gentle smile, is gone.

But he's still alive.

He wipes the sleeve of his jacket roughly against his face, scrubbing at the sticky, dried tear stains and his puffy eyes. He's...he doesn't know why he's still alive. He shouldn't be, shouldn't have survived the initial bloodbath, except…

James Barnes.

The image of James's blood-streaked face flashes through his mind, and he cringes. But James had stopped Brock's throwing knife from killing him. He'd...he'd _saved_ Steve.

_Why?_

He has no idea. It's not as though his survival chances are that much better now; if anyone runs into him, he's still dead.

Steve spends the rest of the day hiding in the undergrowth, only venturing out to find some roots or berries to eat. By some stroke of luck, no one's managed to find him or stumble across him by dusk. It occurs to him that the cameras scattered around the arena probably broadcast him curled up pathetically in a ball to the entire country. He decides he doesn't care.

As the sky darkens, he shivers in his nylon jacket. Making a fire might as well be the same as shining a beacon into the sky—_here I am, come and kill me!_—but there's no way he'll last the night if he doesn't have any heat. Death by a knife stab would probably be quicker than death by freezing. He collects some sticks and tries to drill a thinner one into a larger one, the way he did during training.

He listens to the anthem sound through the sky and forces himself to look at the faces of those who have died. Gail is last, her picture lingering in the sky before fading from view.

He wonders what her family must be thinking about back home as they saw the footage of her dying—and instantly regrets thinking about it.

Just as he thinks he sees smoke coming from his stick, a hand suddenly grabs his shoulder from behind. He opens his mouth to yell out, but a second hand clamps over his mouth, muffling his voice.

"Shut up!" a familiar voice hisses. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Steve spins around as the hands let go of him. Standing there, in the dark, is the shadowed, barely visible figure of James Barnes. Steve glimpses bloodstained traces still streaked across his face.

Steve stumbles back, landing on the ground. "What...what do you want?" he stammers.

"I want you to stop acting like a moron," James says curtly.

Steve only stares back, unable to understand.

"Look," James goes on, "you've got to either keep walking deeper into the forest or find an _actual_ hiding place. It's only a matter of time before someone steps on you, lying practically right next to the Cornucopia."

Steve frowns. "Is this...some kind of trick?"

"Trick?"

"You're a _Career,_" Steve exclaims, though he keeps his voice low. "Why did you save me? Why are you trying to help me? If this is your idea of a joke—"

James snorts. "Yeah, I _am_ a Career, and that means if I wanted you dead, you'd already _be_ dead. So unless you plan on dying, you'd better shut up and follow me."

Steve regards him. He doesn't trust this boy who saved him—doesn't trust his laughter, his rage, his coldness. But James Barnes is his only shot at surviving this madness, and so he has no choice but to follow him.

"Okay," Steve says warily. "Lead on."

* * *

He sees Gail, her eyes widening as she falls to the ground. Blood spreads out in a pool beneath her. She's dead, she's dead and so are the other ten tributes whose faces stare at him from the darkness—

Steve jerks awake with a gasp. He can't move his arms, and at first panic surges through him—but then he remembers he's in a sleeping bag that James gave him the night before, buried under a pile of leaves and covered by a bush.

"James?" he whispers. Then, a bit louder— "James!"

No answer.

It seems odd that James would just leave him there, but Steve doesn't exactly want to wait for James to return, either. He wriggles out of the sleeping bag and pulls it out of the ground.

The forest is still, peaceful, even. A soft morning breeze ruffles his hair and rustles the leaves above, making them whisper to each other. He can even hear birds chirping softly in the distance.

"Oh, good, you're awake."

Steve's head whips around so fast his neck creaks in protest. James is sitting against a tree, putting away something that gleams like metal, and then he tosses one of two black nylon backpacks at him. Steve barely catches before it hits him in the face. "There's some food and water in there. Eat as much as you can."

Steve peers into the backpack. He finds a packet of jerky, crackers, and a filled water bottle, but also rope, bandages, a box of matches, and what look like iodine tablets.

"Do all the backpacks come with this much stuff?" he can't help asking.

"No. Most of it came from sponsors."

Oh, right. _Sponsors._ He thinks about how he had nothing the day before while James received so much. He supposes it's all thanks to James's stylist and his interview, but still...it hardly seems fair.

"What about the extra sleeping roll?" That couldn't have been a sponsor present.

"Maybe I just happened to pick one up."

"Why?"

James scowls. "Are you gonna eat?" he asks, without answering Steve's question. "We don't have all day."

Steve's fingers curl around the nylon. That brings up yet another question: why is James so willing to share his supplies? Giving him a spare sleeping bag is one thing. Letting Steve share his food, on the other hand...it's not like James _needs_ to keep him alive for anything.

But James is watching him with sharp eyes, so he pushes his questions away for the time being and starts chewing on some crackers and jerky, sneaking glances at him between bites.

James must have found a water source, because he's washed his face clean, though there are still dark, rusty stains on his jacket. Steve remembers the way he'd looked yesterday—eyes cold, face blank as he stabbed Brock to death.

_He killed Brock,_ Steve reminds himself grimly. _Brock...and who knows how many others._

"So, um, James—" he begins, once he's finished eating and stuffed his sleeping roll in the backpack.

"Call me Bucky," James interrupts.

Steve stares at him. "Why?"

James's gaze is challenging, stubborn. "Why not?"

Steve decides this isn't worth arguing about and gives in. "Okay...Bucky." He swallows hard. "Yesterday...you killed Brock."

James—Bucky's expression shutters. "Are you trying to thank me for saving your life? 'Cause you kind of suck at it."

Steve's hands curl into fists in his lap. "How many other tributes did you...did you…"

"What?"

"Kill," Steve finishes, the word sticking to his throat.

There's something terrifyingly blank in Bucky's eyes. Steve swallows hard and waits for him to answer.

Bucky looks away. "Why do you care?" he says, his voice rough with irritation. "It's not like it matters."

Steve's mouth flattens as he tries to hold back his shock.

"They...they were _people,_" he forces out. "They had families, friends, hopes and dreams—"

"Didn't I tell you to shut up if you wanted to stay alive?" Bucky snaps. He gets up, brushing the dirt off his pants. "C'mon, we've got to get moving."

"Moving...where?" Steve asks, suspiciously, as he shrugs the backpack over his shoulders.

A moment of silence passes. "I saw tracks nearby," Bucky finally says.

"Animal tracks?"

Bucky's long pause is answer enough.

"No," Steve says, his clenched fists shaking. "_No._"

"What—d'you want to wait for someone to find you and kill you first?" Bucky's eyes narrow. "If it's not you, it'll be them."

Steve just looks at him—looks at that boyish face with empty eyes. The face of a killer.

"This is a _game_ to you, isn't it?" Steve bursts out. "You save me, pretend to _help_ me, because I'm no threat to you and you can get rid of me whenever you want. You didn't care about Gail. You didn't care about those tributes you _murdered_."

"Newsflash," Bucky says, his voice so cold it could freeze water, "this is the _Hunger Games._ Killing the competition is _how things work._"

"For _you,_" Steve snaps. "I'd rather die than go along with some cold-blooded killer who hunts people like _animals_."

Bucky steps forward, fists clenched, and that's when Steve's sense of self-preservation kicks in and he flees for his life.

* * *

Only later, after he's run so hard that his legs almost disintegrate under him, does he realize that he's still carrying the bag Bucky had thrown to him earlier.

Panic screams at him to keep running, but each breath makes his chest burn and his legs are two slabs of useless, aching jelly. There's no way he can outrun Bucky, so he crawls forward a bit and then collapses underneath a bush. Any moment, he expects to see those coldly burning blue eyes appear in front of him, right before a knife slides into his heart.

Long minutes inch by.

The forest is still.

Finally, Steve pushes himself up into a sitting position and hesitantly looks around. No sign of Bucky.

He doesn't want to think about why Bucky didn't follow him. As he staggers to his feet, he starts to wonder if maybe dying during the initial bloodbath would've been a mercy. Because now, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, there's a small hope that flutters at the edge of his mind. If he can hide long enough, run away fast enough...maybe he can live. Maybe he can survive. It's just a fantasy; he can't run faster than a thrown knife. But that thought, crazy as it is, sticks in his head and makes every step hurt twice as much.

He looks around the forest, trying to decide what to do next.

Several times, Sharon and Sam had taken him out into the woods around District Twelve and taught him basic hunting and gathering skills—how to set snares and identify edible plants, mostly, since he wasn't terribly good with a sling and even worse with a bow. It's thanks to them that he never starved again after they left the orphanage. He takes out the rope from the backpack and makes a few snares just to keep himself busy, knotting them the way he remembers, and—

God, he misses them.

Steve lays the snare aside and takes a deep breath. But no, the forest smells too much like the one in District Twelve, too fresh and earthy even though it's a man-made arena. He remembers Sharon and Sam teasing each other over who brought down more game, nights spent stirring pots of stew over the fire and breathing in the mouthwatering aroma of meat, the times they'd blown days' worth of hunting to surprise him with a fresh-baked fruit tart from the bakery for his birthday even though they shouldn't have—

_Stop it, Rogers,_ he tells himself sternly. No use in thinking about that now.

As he scans his surroundings, he sees the bright green of moss peeking out from beneath the undergrowth. Moss. Moss means moisture, he thinks to himself, so he starts looking around for water. He bends a fern back and steps forward—

"AUGH!"

—and suddenly the world's flipped upside-down and he's dangling in the air by his ankle.

An upside-down face approaches him. Red hair, a slim face—it's the girl from District One. Sin. "You're not Barnes or Romanoff," she says.

"Uh...no." He's starting to feel lightheaded, and his ankle feels like it's about to break.

"Too bad. I was really hoping you'd be one of those two show-offs. But you'll have to do." A knife glints in front of his face, and terror races down his spine. It takes him a moment too long to realize Sin is _smiling_. "Let's cut you open and see what's inside."

"W-_what?_" Steve chokes out. He feels the knife press against the cloth of his jacket, right above his stomach, and terror jolts through him. "W-wait! If you're going to k-kill me, please...please make it quick?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Sin retorts, bringing the knife point against his neck. He's breathing too fast, biting down hard on his lip as the knife pokes through his skin. "Now be quiet before I cut your tongue out."

_No,_ a voice is screaming in his head as she raises the knife, angles it toward his ribs. _No, no, please no—_

Sin suddenly lets out a shriek. A throwing knife sprouts from her forearm, staining her sleeve with red. There's a blur of movement—voices, too muffled for him to follow—he can't see what's going on until he hears a _crack_—then a new face comes into view—

"Bucky?!" Steve yelps.

Bucky looks up and down. "Don't move," he orders, and runs for the nearby tree.

Everything's starting to become fuzzy and dark. His head feels heavy, so heavy...

"Steve. Steve, can you hear me?"

"Uhh?"

Blue. Is this...heaven? No, it's the sky, and someone—Bucky—is pulling him up from the ground, leaning him against a boulder. The blurred shapes slowly settle around him into trees and bushes.

Something cold and sharp stings his neck, and he flinches back.

"Stop moving." Bucky's face is stony as he keeps dabbing what looks like an alcohol pad on the wound. "You don't want to get this infected."

Steve blinks. "Have...have you been _following_ me?" he croaks.

Bucky presses a bandage onto Steve's neck with surprising gentleness and snorts. "You damn near got yourself _killed._ You're _lucky,_ Rogers."

Steve turns his head then, and sees Sin's body lying on the ground, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle and eyes staring blankly into the distance. His stomach suddenly shoots up to the back of his mouth.

"Uh," he chokes out, sourness flooding his tongue. "I think—I'm gonna—"

He just barely stumbles past Bucky before he hurls into the bushes.

Bucky doesn't say a word until his retching comes up dry; then, a warm hand closes on his shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."

Steve tries to get to his feet. He staggers. Bucky is suddenly there, a strong arm supporting him around the shoulders.

"Whoa, easy."

Except he can't tear his eyes away from Sin's empty eyes, and then—then he remembers the hand on him is the same one that snapped Sin's neck—

The ground rushes up to him. The world goes dark.

* * *

When he wakes up, it's still dark. His mouth tastes like rot, and his throat feels like someone set fire to a piece of sandpaper and stuck it inside.

"Here."

It's Bucky's voice. He holds out a bottle of water, and Steve takes it with trembling fingers, gulping greedily.

"What…" Steve rasps, once he's done. He clears his throat, rubs the back of his hand over his eyes, and blinks hard. "What happened?"

"You fainted," Bucky answers calmly. "Probably due to dehydration...and shock."

Steve looks around. It's dusk again, and Bucky's sitting on the ground next to a small fire, stuffing dried strips of meat into his pack. He has a few bruises and scrapes on his face, but otherwise appears fine. Bones lie scattered around in the dirt, the remains of what might have been a pair of turkey carcasses.

Steve's about to ask more when the anthem plays overhead and he looks up. Six faces appear in the sky—including Sin's.

The image of her body flashes through his mind. He grabs fistfulls of the grass underneath him, fighting off a new wave of nausea.

"Sin," he says, out loud, once the nausea passes. "Why did she—what happened to her?" He tries to remember how she'd been before the Games, but she seemed normal, nothing out of the ordinary…

"It happens." Bucky's voice is still level. Emotionless. "The Hunger Games bring out the worst in people. Some just...snap."

Steve stares at him. _Some,_ he said, as though he's not one of them. Bucky may not have Sin's sadistic glee, but Steve still hasn't forgotten his smugness during the pre-Games interview. The callous way he disregarded the other tributes' lives.

"Some?" he repeats bitterly. "Or is it a Career thing?"

Bucky's face darkens. "What?"

Steve's on his feet, full of anger all of a sudden. "You don't care any more than she did. You were born and bred for the Games—I bet it's all a joke to you, watching us struggle when we never had a chance—our _lives_ don't mean anything to you, all you care about is killing—"

Bucky bolts to his feet and stalks toward him, eyes narrowed into slits. Steve gulps and takes a step back.

"You think I wanted this? You think _any_ of us wanted this?"

Steve's back bumps into a tree trunk, and his stomach jumps into his throat as he looks into those eyes simmering with rage. His heart's hammering so loudly against his ribcage that some small voice in the back of his head wonders if he'll die of a heart attack before Bucky can kill him.

"You don't know what it's like," Bucky whispers harshly. "They take us whether we want to go or not. They strip us of everything except how to kill. They—" He looks away. When he speaks again, his voice is low, broken, full of pain. "I haven't seen my family in _years._"

Steve breathes in sharply, eyes widening.

Bucky backs off and sits on a rock, still not meeting his gaze. "An honor," he spits, voice dripping with contempt and venom. "They call it an honor to be trained for the Games. That's how they hide the fact that they take children and _break_ them until they become little killing machines."

Steve sits down, carefully, across from him. He wants to apologize, but his eyes dart around the clearing, and he's not sure what to say first: _sorry,_ or _I think your speech is being broadcast to all of Panem right now_?

"Um...Bucky?" he says quietly, tentatively. "You...remember there are cameras, right?"

Bucky blinks, looks around them, and the corner of his mouth twists into a sneer. "Like I give a damn. The Capitol is happy to let twenty-four kids beat each other to death on live television; let them listen to the truth about the Careers. And if they want to blow me up with a missile right now just for speaking—" He shrugs, chillingly casual. "It can't be worse than being stabbed to death, can it?"

Steve doesn't answer that. When Bucky falls silent again, Steve mumbles, "I'm sorry, Bucky. I didn't know...I had no idea...I'm sorry."

Bucky regards him. Something in his eyes flickers.

"You aren't wrong," he says flatly. "Maybe I—I was trying to make myself feel better about killing everyone _else._ So I can lie and say I didn't do it for myself. 'Cause you're—I mean, whatever hand of fate picked your name out of that bowl had a sick sense of humor. Even sicker than pitting twenty-four kids against each other in a murder match every year. I knew as soon as I saw you that you'd be the first one dead in the Games, and everyone in the whole damn Capitol knew it too, but still they acted like you were some spunky kid from District Twelve who actually had a fighting chance, probably so the audience could cry when they saw your bloody body on the screen before they forgot you, like they forget everyone else. And just—the whole thing—you didn't deserve that. No one does."

Something tightens in the back of Steve's throat. Bucky clenches and unclenches his fists and doesn't meet his gaze.

"I don't know," he says, his voice grating and hoarse. "Maybe I...I just wanted to do _one_ good thing. To prove that I _could._ But it's not going to work, is it? Whatever happens...I'll still be guilty. Just like everyone else."

Steve doesn't know what to do with Bucky's raw confession, so he lets the darkness swallow it, lets the cameras record and broadcast it, lets all of Panem make of it what they will. After a while, Bucky exhales slowly and kicks dirt over their dying fire.

"Get some sleep, Steve," he says in that rough, but not unkind, way of his. "We've still got a long way to go."


	3. The Alliance

When Steve wakes up the next morning, he finds Bucky making notches in the dirt with a stick.

"What are you doing?"

Bucky hands him some strips of tree bark and dried meat. "Seventeen tributes are dead. That means there's seven of us left."

Steve forces himself to keep chewing, even though the food suddenly tastes like cardboard.

"There's you and me," Bucky says, erasing two of the notches with his hand. "So that's five tributes we have to watch out for." He pauses. "One of them's Natasha."

Steve searches Bucky's face for concern, or fear, or—anything, really, about his fellow tribute, but Bucky's expression is unreadable. He taps the ground with his stick. "You'd better pray we don't run into her," is all he says. "Other than her, there's the boy from District Four, the two District Seven tributes, and the girl from District Five."

"They have names, you know," Steve interjects. "Shen, Ian, Jet, and Susan."

Bucky scowls, but doesn't respond. He throws the stick aside and stands up. "You done eating yet?"

Steve freezes with one last bit of meat still in his hands as a thought hits him. "You aren't—you can't still be thinking about—"

"What?"

"Trying to..._hunt down_ the others."

Bucky looks at him for a long moment.

"Fine," he says, at last. "I won't. But if we just _happen_ to run into someone, I can't promise I'll just back away slowly."

Steve drops his gaze and stuffs his mouth with the last bit of meat so he won't have to reply.

Bucky shrugs on his backpack. "We're out of water," he says. "We should go find more."

They walk for a while, silent except for the leaves brushing against their legs, before Bucky suddenly says, "You realize you're just making everything harder, right?"

"Huh?"

"Thinking about their names." Bucky bends back a branch in their way. "If you want to keep sane, you can't think about things like that."

"I'm not going to do that," Steve insists. "They're people, not _animals_."

Bucky huffs. "Just trying to give some friendly advice."

Steve looks at him. What happens to make someone like this, he wonders? A measured stride, eyes staring straight ahead, talking about people like objects?

"What was the Career training process like?" he asks, hesitantly.

Bucky stops and looks at him. "Technically, I'm not supposed to say."

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Nah." Bucky gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I don't really care about keeping secrets." He resumes walking. "The selection process happens when we turn five."

Steve swallows. "That's…_young._"

Bucky doesn't comment. "They train us to be prepared for anything, and I mean _anything._ Fighting, survival...how to handle the interviews and gain sponsors. Every two years, they do evaluations. Physical and psychological screenings. And they keep weeding out the ones who don't pass until there are only two of us left. Once we hit eighteen, we have to volunteer."

Steve mulls this over. Physical evaluations he could understand, but… "Psychological screenings?"

"Oh, yeah." There's something chilling about the blank expression on Bucky's face. "Some people have a mental breakdown when they have to kill. Others go the opposite way and become trigger-happy mass murderers. They want tributes who are..._stable_. Like robots. They don't always succeed, but they try."

Steve can't help but think that the program had succeeded. With Bucky, at least.

"So, uh…is it something they train, or something they just…look for?"

Bucky looks back and smiles blandly. "I've never asked. I don't want to know the answer."

He couldn't have held up a bigger "DANGER" sign if he'd tried. Steve decides that now is a very good time to stop asking questions about how District Two trained their Careers.

They pause along the way to pick mustard, wood sorrel, and chicory plants to eat before Steve speaks again.

"What's District Two like?"

"It's...you know...mountains and stone quarries and stuff." Bucky pushes away a low-hanging branch. "To tell you the truth...I haven't been allowed to walk around District Two since I was five. Once I was chosen for Career training, I basically spent all my time in the Red Room."

Steve almost chokes. "Thirteen years in _one_ room?"

"It's not literally a room; that's just what we call the facility for training District Two Careers. And sometimes they sent us out for survival exercises. But otherwise...yeah."

Steve thinks it sounds awful.

"What about District Twelve?" Bucky asks, sounding eager to change the subject. "What's it like over there?"

"Uh...kind of similar, I guess. Almost everyone has to work in the coal mines."

Bucky glances at him with a skeptical expression. "You look like you'd die if you spent one hour mining coal."

Steve ducks under a tree branch. "I was training to be an apothecary, so I was exempt."

"Apothecary, huh?" Bucky sounds thoughtful. "That...explains a lot."

"All I ever wanted to do was help people. You know, do something good." Steve sighs. "So much for that."

Bucky keeps walking and doesn't reply.

"Did you ever think about what you would do after...you know, after this is all over?" Steve asks him.

Bucky looks away. "I don't know. Not really, I guess. You spend your whole life training for this one event, knowing that if you fail, you're dead, so you don't really...think about what comes next."

"Um...well, maybe you could finally see your family again," Steve offers.

He thought Bucky would brighten up at the thought, but instead Bucky frowns at the undergrowth. "Guess so. I don't…" He falters. "I don't know if they'd recognize me, though. It's...been a long time…"

"I'm sure they'd recognize your face from all the broadcasts by now."

Bucky doesn't respond. Steve has a suspicion that there's something behind his words that Bucky isn't explaining. He doesn't press him, though.

"What are they like?"

"My parents are Peacekeepers, and I have a little sister." Bucky's face softens. "Becca. Last time I saw her, she was only three."

There's such open longing in his voice that Steve can't bring himself to say anything.

Bucky falls into another brooding silence for a bit, then shakes his head at himself. "What about you? Got family back home?"

"Not exactly. My dad died in a mine accident before I was old enough to remember him. My mom was a healer, but then she got hit with TB and couldn't shake it."

"Sorry to hear that."

Steve shrugs. "Happens to a bunch of kids in District Twelve."

Bucky looks like he's about to say something, but he stops.

"Hold on." He crouches to the ground, brushing away some fallen leaves. "Someone's been this way."

Steve's stomach drops.

"You—you said you wouldn't," he stammers.

"I'm thinking about _water_, Steve. The ground's been sloping downward in this direction—meaning there's water this way. It's the third day and we're down to seven tributes. Water sources are going to start shrinking soon—depending on how patient the audience is this year."

Steve blinks. "How do you _know_ this stuff?"

"Career training, remember?" Bucky shifts the strap of his backpack on his shoulder as he stands back up. "The way the Gamemakers adjust the arena is usually pretty predictable. Even though they set all of this up—" He waves vaguely at the forest, "—the point of the Games is to watch kids kill each other. So, sooner or later, they're going to try to force the remaining tributes into a final deathmatch."

He explains this so calmly he almost sounds bored.

Steve rubs his forehead. "Then let's just—find another source."

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"

Steve knows Bucky's right, but he can't bear the thought of knowingly following another person's tracks, not with Bucky standing there, one hand fingering the hilt of a knife strapped to his waist. "But—"

A yell pierces the air.

Steve starts and looks around. "You—you heard that?"

"What are you doing?" Bucky asks warningly as Steve steps in the direction of the voice.

"It sounds like someone's in pain. We have to help—"

"Are you _insane?_" Bucky hisses, grabbing Steve's shoulder. "That person's probably dead or dying—_or_ it's a trap. And just five seconds ago you wanted to avoid everyone!"

Steve hesitates, biting his lip, but the voice cries out again.

"I can't just do _nothing_," he grits out, shrugging off Bucky's hand and plunging into the undergrowth, without waiting for him to follow.

When he emerges from a thicket of bushes, he sees the edge of a pond—and there's a black-haired girl kneeling in the dirt, half-supported by a younger boy.

The boy looks up at Steve with wide eyes. His name is Ian, Steve remembers—the twelve-year-old boy from District Seven.

"Help," Ian whispers, faltering. "Jet—I think she ate something—she's not moving—"

Steve sees her fingers are stained with dark purple juice. Berry poisoning wasn't common in District Twelve, but he'd watched his mother deal with cases of food poisoning and he guesses the idea is close enough.

"Okay," Steve says, trying to keep his voice calm. "Jet—Jet, can you hear me? You're going to have to throw up whatever it is that you ate. Stick a finger down your throat. It's going to be unpleasant, but it's the only way."

At first he thinks she didn't hear him, or she's too far gone to respond; then, she jams two fingers into her mouth and turns away to vomit.

Ian looks up. His eyes widen and he scrambles backwards. "B–behind you—"

Steve turns. It's Bucky who's standing there, a throwing knife clutched in his left hand, looking very, very displeased.

"Don't worry about him," Steve forces himself to say with a smile. "He's not going to hurt anyone. _Right?_"

Bucky scowls in response, but he doesn't make a move toward Ian and Jet.

Jet finally stops, and the color comes back to her cheeks. Her expression is dazed for a moment as she looks around, before her eyes focus on Steve. "You. You helped me."

"Yeah," Bucky interrupts roughly, "so hurry up and thank him, and then we'll get the hell out of here and pretend this all never happened."

Jet's eyes go to him and widen.

"Bucky," Steve protests, turning to him, "that's not—"

Suddenly someone grabs Steve from behind, locking an arm against his throat. He sputters, gasping for breath, but the arm won't let go. Bucky's expression darkens and he lunges forward, snarling, "_You—_"

"Drop the knife." It's Jet's voice, cold, right next to Steve's ear. The sharp, metallic edge of an axe nestles against the side of his neck. "Or he loses his head, right now."

Steve breathes in shallow, rapid gasps. Bucky stands still, eyes filled with fury, and for a moment Steve is sure Bucky's going to throw his knife and kill them both.

But Bucky doesn't. Slowly, grudgingly, he tosses his knife harmlessly to the ground. In a flash, Ian darts over to him and presses a hatchet to Bucky's chest.

"Bucky, no!" Steve chokes out.

And he realizes then that this is _all his fault._ If it had only been him, well, he was bound to die sooner or later. But the idea that _Bucky_ would die because of him is too much to bear. Because Steve didn't _listen_…

Jet laughs. "Wow, I didn't think that would actually work. What, the big, bad District Two Career tribute actually _cares_ about the life of a District Twelve schmuck?"

Bucky's eyes hold no trace of accusation. They are cold and empty as they flit back and forth between Steve and Jet.

"So this was all a trap?" he asks, in an emotionless voice.

"Hell, no. You think I'd poison myself on purpose?" The blade presses harder against Steve's neck, and he bites down hard on his lip to keep silent. "Thanks for the help, but there's no way we're passing up a chance to get rid of a District Two Career."

"'We'?" Bucky is smiling now, but it's completely devoid of warmth and hard with a savage edge. "You think you can both make it out alive? There can only be one victor for the Hunger Games. Do you think you have it in you to kill your partner when the time comes?"

"_Shut up!_" Jet yells.

The horrible truth dawns on Steve: Jet and Ian are doing the exact same thing as he and Bucky—trying to survive together. Hoping for an ending that has no hope of happening.

Ian raises his hatchet. Bucky watches it dispassionately. A scream wells up in Steve's throat—

Without warning, Bucky tenses; then drops to a crouch on the ground.

Ian lurches forward, tilting his head down to stare at the knife suddenly embedded in his chest before he collapses. A cannon booms distantly.

It all happens so fast Steve is left blinking in shock. Jet's arm and blade around his neck loosen. "What—"

Bucky rolls forward as another knife plunges into the dirt next to him. He springs to his feet, just as someone bursts into the clearing.

Ran Shen. The tribute from District Four.

"Sorry," he says coolly, "but Barnes is mine."

Jet drops Steve. He falls to the ground as she bounds forward toward Shen, shrieking, "_You're dead_—"

Bucky dives to the side as Shen lunges toward him. Jet swings her axe downward—Shen dodges to the side, grabbing her wrist with his free hand as he stabs her in the leg with his left—she shouts and falls to one knee—his left hand jerks back up and drives the knife into her neck, and then her voice cuts off as she collapses—the cannon fires—

Bucky's up again, but Shen stops his punch and twists his arm behind his back and raises his knife—

"Just one question before you kill me," Bucky says, his voice still stunningly calm. "Why did you say I was 'yours'?"

"You and Romanoff," Shen spits, "you're all the Capitol could talk about before the Games started. If you thought you were better than the rest of us—better than the other Careers—you're _wrong_."

The instant Shen finishes his sentence, Bucky slams his head forward into Shen's and—now Bucky has Shen pinned to the ground, with his own knife pointed at his throat.

"That's all?" Bucky's voice drips with disappointed sarcasm. "Too bad. I thought you had something _interesting_ to say."

The knife plunges down. Blood wells up, staining Bucky's hands, and Shen goes limp. The cannon goes off for the third time.

Steve inhales with a harsh gasp.

Bucky's head jerks up and turns toward him. "Steve." He strides over and crouches down. "Are you okay?"

"F-fine," he answers, but his voice sounds distant and pitched too high.

Bucky follows his gaze to the three blood-covered bodies lying on the shore and he grabs Steve's arms, turning him away from the slaughter as he helps him up. "C'mon. You don't—you don't need to see this. Let's go."

* * *

Steve lets Bucky half-lead, half-drag him along the edge of the pond until the tribute's bodies are far behind. Bucky finally stops and unslings his backpack, but then he seems to notice his hands are still covered in blood.

"Damn." He nudges the backpack toward Steve with his foot. "Do you mind if…? I just don't want to...get blood all over the place."

"Sure," Steve replies, still feeling dazed.

He takes the water bottles out with shaking fingers and dips them into the pond water. He dumps them over Bucky's hands until they run clean, then Bucky takes the bottles from him.

"You thirsty?" he asks, in a stiff voice.

Steve shakes his head. "Not—not right now."

Bucky turns his back on him. He can't see what Bucky's doing, but he hears the soft clink of knife blades sliding against each other amongst the murmur of pouring water.

He can feel the tension in the air like a cloud, and the guilt lodged in his throat finally forces him to speak.

"Bucky, I'm—I'm sorry."

Bucky twists back to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

"I didn't mean—you almost _died_ because of me, and I—it was my fault. I'm sorry."

Bucky puts the knives away and then turns around to face him. "I'm not mad at you, Steve."

He isn't. His face, his voice, they're all perfectly level and mild.

"I mean, the fact that you almost lost your head, that _was_ pretty stupid. But…" His gaze slides to the side, and he rubs the back of his neck. "The way you always want to help, even in a situation that's as bad as this? It's pretty...brave."

Steve really doesn't feel brave at that moment.

"Look," Bucky goes on, still not meeting Steve's gaze, "trying to do the right thing, even if it's suicidal? That's not...it's not _wrong._"

And Steve doesn't know how to reply, because he thought Bucky had thrown away all notions of right and wrong long before he'd reached the arena.

Without a word, Bucky gathers the water bottles, fills them up again after dropping iodine tablets inside, and stows them.

"We should move away from the shore," he finally says, his voice becoming cool and clipped again. "It's too exposed here."

Steve follows him away from the pond. Bucky doesn't say anything, and Steve's mind is whirling with everything he's seen and heard that day. He thinks about the way Bucky was willing to throw his knife away rather than let Steve die, and he thinks about Jet and Ian, and there's no way Bucky can't know that there is only one possible ending to the Hunger Games.

After Bucky makes a campfire in a little clearing and they finish eating rabbits and boiled roots, Steve finally takes a deep breath.

"Um…" He wets his dry lips. "I don't really know how else to say this, but...are you going to kill me?"

"This again?" Bucky rakes his fingers through his hair, voice sharp with exasperation. "Didn't I already tell you that if I was going to do that—"

"No, I mean—you said it yourself. Only one tribute can win the Hunger Games."

Bucky falls silent then. He looks away, drops his head into his hands, and doesn't answer.

"Look," Steve continues awkwardly, "I...I _get_ it. You don't want to die. You've trained for this your entire life. I only...if you're going to kill me, just...tell me."

"_Dammit, Steve,_" Bucky snarls, "are you _trying_ to make me feel like a monster?"

Steve recoils. "N-no, I wasn't—I'm not saying that I _want_ to die—" Hopeless resignation fills him. "It's just—you don't have a choice."

Bucky looks at him, then, and lets out a bitter chuckle. "Jeez. What happened to your this-is-wrong-and-you-can't-convince-me-otherwise attitude?"

"It _is_ wrong," Steve says, frustrated, "but I—there's nothing—any of us can do."

And he's never felt worse in his life than at that moment. Realizing that all each of them wanted to do was live, and they couldn't survive without paying a blood toll. Confronting the fact that no matter how upset he felt with Bucky for his actions, he wouldn't have taken them back if it meant his own death.

He feels like scum.

"Steve," Bucky snaps, "I am _not_ going to kill you. Maybe…" He looks away. "Maybe you don't believe me, but...I'm not proud of what I have to do. Of what I've _done._"

Steve's breath catches in his throat. "I—of course I believe you, Bucky, but...you're just trying to win. Like everyone else."

Bucky looks at him and smiles then, without warning. The sight of it makes fear spike through Steve's chest. It has all the viciousness and hollowness of the smile of a man who thinks he has nothing left to lose.

"I didn't come here to win," is all Bucky says.

Steve stares at him. "Could've fooled me."

Bucky's mouth twitches, but the intensity fades from his expression. Steve wants to ask what he meant—was it just a sarcastic joke?—but something about the way the firelight glints off Bucky's eyes makes him stop.

He rubs his hands instead and looks around. "Is it me, or is it really cold all of a sudden?"

Bucky looks toward the sky and squints. "Maybe it's just—wait…hold on a sec…" He gets up and starts climbing up the nearest tree, quickly disappearing from sight.

Steve is just about to call out and ask if Bucky can see anything when he abruptly drops down, his face hard as granite. "We've got to move."

Steve's heart skips a beat as he scrambles to his feet, grabbing his backpack. "What's happening?"

"Freak storm." Bucky jerks his thumb back over his shoulder. "We're gonna need to find shelter before it hits."

Steve looks back in the direction Bucky pointed, and he sees it. Snow, falling hard and fast along with balls of hail, blanketing the ground in white—but moving forward in a straight line, like a wall.

"What the _hell?_" he breathes, as he starts following Bucky. "Snow doesn't work like that!"

"Welcome to the Hunger Games," Bucky returns sarcastically. "Now let's _move._"

* * *

They keep jogging through the woods until Bucky finds what looks like a small cave next to a dried-up riverbed. They make it inside just as hail starts angrily bombarding the stone around them.

"Might as well get some sleep," Bucky says, kicking away the hailstones that bounce into the lip of the cave. "We're not going anywhere until the storm ends."

Steve retreats to the back of the cave, away from the freezing gusts at the entrance, and crawls into his sleeping roll. But even with the fabric tucked around him, he can still feel the chill of the storm worming icy fingers through tiny chinks and gaps. He hugs himself tightly and curls up, his breath rattling with feeble warmth.

The faint sound of a booming cannon goes off. A fourth tribute is dead today.

Bucky tries to stick his head outside to look at the faces when the anthem starts to play, but he quickly pulls back, cursing. "Can't tell who the fourth tribute is."

"It has to be Natasha or Susan, right?"

"Yeah, I just hope…"

Whatever Bucky meant to say, he doesn't finish. Instead, he comes to the back of the cave and sets his pack down. He's in the middle of setting out his own sleeping bag when he glances over, eyes narrowing. "Steve. Can you feel your fingers?"

"Y-yeah, of course I can…" Steve winces as his chattering teeth give him away.

Bucky walks over and unzips the edge of Steve's sleeping bag. Cold air rushes in.

"Bucky!" he protests.

Bucky ignores him and grabs his hand. He's so cold that Bucky's fingers feel like a bonfire in comparison.

"You're a big fat liar," Bucky scoffs.

He moves away. Steve's about to call him a jerk for not zipping his sleeping bag back up, but then Bucky reappears with his own unzipped sleeping roll.

"Move over," he says, pushing Steve to the side and tumbling down next to him as he throws his sleeping roll over them like a blanket and tucks the edges in.

"What—what are you doing?" Steve asks warily.

"Making sure you don't freeze to death, you moron."

Steve struggles halfheartedly as Bucky wraps his arms around him, but it's warmer, a lot warmer now, and he quickly gives up. As his eyes drift shut, he thinks...it's strange, but for the first time in a long time, he feels safe.


	4. The End

Steve wakes up to a sound of breathing that isn't his own. It takes him a moment to remember why he feels so warm.

He opens his eyes. Surprisingly, Bucky isn't awake yet. His expression is so _peaceful_ that Steve finds himself wondering what kind of person Bucky might have been if he hadn't been chosen for the Games as a child.

If Bucky had been born into District Twelve...would they have been friends?

"Bucky?" Steve whispers.

"Mm." Bucky stirs, unfolds himself, and yawns widely. He opens his eyes and sees Steve—

—and he _smiles._

It's not the cocky, staged smile he had during the tributes' parade and Caesar's interview. It's not the hollow smile he had earlier, either. It's a _real_ smile, one that lights up his eyes with happiness, and Steve can't help smiling back in bewilderment.

"You're alive," is all Bucky says.

"Yeah. I'm still alive." Steve watches him for a moment. "Wait a—you really thought I was going to die last night?"

"'Course not," Bucky scoffs, but the way his hands shake just a little as he stuffs the sleeping bags back into their backpacks tells a different story.

"You did," Steve says, in amazement.

Bucky hits him gently with a sleeping roll. "Okay...maybe a little, you punk."

"Jerk," Steve retorts, rubbing his arm. But he's still smiling.

Bucky peers outside the cave and purses his lips, the light fading a little from his eyes.

"We've got to move," he says. "There's no more hail, but it looks like the snow is going to start up again soon. It's probably pushing us towards the last tribute," he adds, for Steve's benefit.

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out, slowly. Counting him and Bucky, there are only three tributes left.

One way or another, it's all going to end today.

They set off without a word, heading away from the falling snow. The arena is eerily quiet, with the snow silencing the rustling leaves. They don't talk, but Steve can see the tension between Bucky's shoulders, and he wonders what Bucky must be thinking right now, so close to freedom.

So close to the end of their partnership.

The snow seems to be pushing them back to where they started. When they emerge from the trees, the familiar sight of the black cone greets them—and there is one lone figure sitting on the frosted ground, waiting for him.

Bucky breathes in sharply.

"Natasha," he says, voice suddenly hoarse and ragged.

Natasha Romanoff turns her face toward them and stands up as they approach. She's got dirt and blood all over her jacket, but she doesn't look like she's been injured during the Games. Steve hangs back, watching Bucky and Natasha walk toward each other before they stop, a few yards apart. Natasha's eyes are cold, as cold as Steve's seen Bucky's eyes go when he kills.

"You betrayed me, James," she says.

Bucky doesn't answer. His face is blank.

"We were supposed to work together. For our district." She gestures dismissively at Steve. "And you decided instead to go off with this runt—for what? To help _him_ win?" Her mouth curves into a disbelieving smile. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Enough, Nat," Bucky says curtly.

"He's already dead," Natasha goes on, without malice. "He was dead the moment he was chosen for the Games. You might have helped him live longer, but we both know he has no chance of living past this hour. Even if you beat me...you'll have to kill him yourself. You _know_ this, James."

"I said _enough,_" Bucky snaps, flipping his knife in his hand. "Let's get this over with."

Steve saw them spar during the pre-Games training, but he realizes now that they had been holding back. Both move with the calculated efficiency of machines, throwing punch after kick at each other, no emotion crossing their faces except occasional winces of pain or grunts of exertion.

Suddenly, the knife is gone from Bucky's hand as Natasha trips him and pins him to the ground. Before Steve can tell where it went, Bucky's left arm jerks up as though to block and—the knife plunges straight through, blood pooling around the hilt.

"Bucky!" Steve cries out.

Bucky's mouth closes into a snarl, but Natasha has her hands clamped around his throat. And Steve feels so powerless, so _helpless_ at that moment, because Bucky is going to die. Bucky, who is fire and rage and the cold eyes of a killer but also a warmth in the darkness and a brilliant smile; Bucky, who was poised for glory but just wanted to see his family again; Bucky, who was one of the favorites to win but decided to take pity on a scrawny boy from District Twelve.

White-hot grief burns his heart as he watches Natasha strangle the life out of Bucky. It isn't _fair,_ he wants to scream, it isn't _fair_ because they've come so far and held on for so long, but they were doomed from the start.

Then—

Natasha yells out and abruptly collapses to the side. That's when Steve sees the knife plunged between her ribs.

Bucky rises, coughing and gasping for breath. Steve runs toward them.

_Bucky,_ he wants to call out. _Bucky._

But Bucky is cradling Natasha's head now, and Steve stops.

"You know why I left you?" Bucky whispers, his voice broken. "Because I—I desperately hoped someone else would kill you. I didn't want to have to do it. I didn't…"

"James, you fool," Natasha says, but her voice is soft. She grimaces in pain. "Just...end it already."

He takes the knife and stabs it, without hesitation, into her heart. She goes still, her eyes glazing over.

"I'm sorry," Bucky whispers, tears trailing down his face.

The cannon booms, but it sounds distant. Bucky lays Natasha's head down and turns his head up to face the sky, his eyes emptying until there is nothing left except bleakness.

It's just the two of them left, now.

"Bucky," Steve says, his voice cracking.

Bucky turns to look at him. He rises. His left arm is drenched in blood, but he doesn't look like he is even aware of it anymore.

"Your…" Steve swallows hard. "Your arm. You need to...you need a doctor."

Bucky doesn't respond. His eyes are cold again, but for some reason, Steve doesn't feel afraid. A strange calmness settles over him. Deep down, some part of him always knew it would end this way.

"I'm sorry," Steve says softly.

Bucky blinks, slowly. "What for?"

"I...you tried so hard to help me, even though I had no chance, I never had a chance, and…" Steve takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry...we couldn't make it out together."

The corner of Bucky's mouth pulls up into a hollow, broken smile. "I'm sorry, too."

They fall into silence. Bucky slowly pulls out another knife with his right hand, without ever taking his eyes from Steve's face. Steve stands there, waiting, waiting for Bucky to walk over to him, plunge the knife down, and end the Hunger Games.

But Bucky doesn't move.

"District Twelve," Bucky says, voice distant, "hasn't had a winner in twenty-five years, has it?"

Steve frowns. "No," he answers, failing to see what this question has to do with anything.

Bucky looks down at the knife in his right hand, then back at Steve again. He raises the knife.

And drives it into his own chest.

At first, Steve can do nothing except stare in shock. This can't be happening. It _can't._ Except then Bucky lets out a cry and crumples to the ground, and...it _is_ happening. It's _real._

"_No!_" Steve screams. He sprints over to where Bucky's fallen, tries desperately to staunch the blood flowing from the wound with his hands. Tears blur his vision. "_What the hell are you doing?!_"

"You're the winner, now," Bucky croaks. "Congratulations."

"No," Steve sobs, _no,_ because he shouldn't have won, he never should've won, and he never, _never_ wanted to win like this. "Your—your family—you have to go back—_see_ them—"

"It doesn't...matter." Bucky's eyes flutter shut. "Only one...can survive. You didn't deserve...to die...like an animal…"

"And you _did?_" Steve cries.

Bucky opens his mouth, but his shoulders hunch and a sound of agony squeezes through his gritted teeth.

Steve's shaking hands fall to the bloody knife in Bucky's chest. He can't—can't _bear_ the thought of using the blade, but if he could end Bucky's pain—

"No." Bucky grabs Steve's hand. "Leave it."

"But—"

"It has to be slow," Bucky whispers. "It has to be painful. I have to _suffer_."

Steve looks at him, torn between grief and confusion. Bucky's eyes are filled with desperation and anguish and remorse.

_"I didn't come here to win,"_ he'd said.

And only then does Steve start to wonder—when did this become Bucky's plan? When did Bucky decide he didn't intend to make it out alive? Did he plan this from the start? Or did he reach a point at which he could no longer bear how much blood he'd shed?

He holds on to Bucky's body and cries, cries until Bucky's pained breathing fades to silence and the light dies in his eyes, cries until the cannon fires and someone knocks him out from behind because he won't leave the body.

He doesn't feel like a victor.

He feels like he's lost.


	5. The Victor

Steve slowly crawls out of a heavy, murky sleep that clings to him like dust. Everything is sterile white around him, and it takes a long moment for him to realize he's lying on an infirmary bed.

"You're awake."

He turns his head to the side. Fury looks down at him, relief visible in his eye.

"What…" Steve rasps. "What...happened?"

"They had to knock you out when the Games ended."

And then he remembers.

_Bucky._

He struggles to get up, but Fury pushes his shoulder back down. "Whoa, take it easy. You've been waking up on and off for days now, and each time they've had to sedate you again."

Steve is about to open his mouth to ask why when he looks down at himself, and the words die in his throat.

He…

He's…

"Fury..._what's wrong with me?!_"

"Steve, calm down—"

"Calm _down?_" And everything that's happened—the bloodshed, the stress, Bucky's death—finally makes something snap inside him. "How can you tell me to calm down when _this isn't my body?_"

Something glints in Fury's eye, something like...regret?

"I'm sorry, Steve, I tried to get them not to do it, but...this is what they do to the victors. Put you under a knife to remove all traces of the Games and make you _look_ like a happy, healthy winner. In your case, they injected you with some kind of growth serum."

Steve looks down at his chest. He's...he's now covered with lean, wiry muscle, and he looks as well-fed as any Capitol citizen. His legs look a little longer than they should be—is he _taller_ now?

It hits him, then, that he finally looks like someone who might have had a chance to win the Hunger Games...now that the Games are _over._ And the ridiculousness of it, the horror of seeing his body altered without anyone so much as _asking_ him, finally cracks him. He buries his head in his hands and lets out a deranged, jagged laugh.

Fury doesn't say anything until his voice has died, choked to death in his throat.

"You'd better get ready. You have to do another interview before it's over."

He'd completely forgotten about the post-Games interview. He tries to remember what it was like in the past; the winners he recalls were usually either blank with shock or unnervingly cheerful, as though someone had injected them with something right before.

"I don't know if I can," he says hoarsely.

Fury's expression hardens. "You have to. And…" He leans forward, hissing, "you're in trouble with President Schmidt."

"What?" Steve's breath snags in his throat. "Why?"

"Barnes wasn't supposed to die over there. It's the first time a tribute's done anything like that, and believe me, they are _not_ happy."

"How is that my fault?" Steve asks, bewildered.

"It's not. But they can't blame Barnes, 'cause he's dead, so now they think you convinced him to do it somehow."

It's so absurd that Steve almost starts laughing hysterically again. He wonders if Bucky had known, or suspected all along. He isn't a victor. He's a _prisoner._

"Fine," he says at last, in a deadened voice. "Let's wrap this circus up."

* * *

They dress him in a suit that starts with silver at the shoulders and darkens to glimmering black at the hems. At this point, he hardly cares; they could've dressed him up in tights, and he wouldn't have a damn left to give. He's more uneasy about Fury's words, and about the fact that everything seems oddly _smaller_ now that he's grown three inches.

And, of course, the entire Hunger Games, which haunt him every living moment.

Fury grabs his arm before he can go on stage. "Wait. This will help."

Steve feels a sharp pinch on his neck and he yelps, swatting the needle away. "What the _hell,_ Nick?!"

"For the nerves," Fury says, without apology. "Remember, just be grateful up there. Don't rock the boat."

Steve doesn't say anything. He turns toward the stage, and slowly walks toward the lights.

"This year's winner of the Hunger Games might be the most shocking turnaround we have _ever_ seen, ladies and gentlemen! Please welcome—Steve Rogers from District Twelve!"

At first, when Steve steps out and looks at the cheering audience, he thinks he might empty his stomach right onto the stage. But then the nausea passes, and he's able to clasp Caesar's outstretched hand. Is this what Fury's syringe was for? he wonders.

They settle into the chairs, and the lights dim as a projection appears on the back wall—and also, presumably, the screens behind them. Each year, they string footage of the Hunger Games together into a narrative. This time, the focus is on Steve's miraculous rescue by Bucky.

Watching it—seeing every death happen for a second time—almost makes Steve throw up. Seeing Bucky's face and listening to his voice again—hearing him say "I didn't come here to win," watching him die all over again—Steve is halfway convinced they put this video together just to torment him for winning.

But the whole thing is sanitized. They've edited out the worst of the gore, most of the tributes who died, the less glamorous moments (they don't show Steve vomiting or lying on the ground in shock), and Bucky's more "objectionable" speeches. And there's something bizarrely voyeuristic about the whole thing. About how they paint Bucky's selfless sacrifice, his tragic fate. About the way the camera lingers on his last expression, full of pain, before it switches to Steve's tear-streaked face, while mournful music plays in the background. Steve tears his eyes away from the screen and looks out at the audience. They are rapt with attention, some dabbing daintily at their moist eyes with gaudy handkerchiefs.

And suddenly—suddenly rage boils through his veins like lava_._ He wants to stand up and scream at everyone. _No. I _lived_ through this, and you're acting like it's some kind of fiction for your entertainment? It was _real._ Kids_ died. Gail _died._ Natasha _died. _Bucky died. _You don't get to act like it's some kind of twisted, star-crossed tragedy because _you did this to us!

"Steve." Caesar's voice pulls him away from his thoughts as the lights come back on. His smile is almost garish after the replay of the Games has ended. "I think I speak for everyone here when I say that your winning was the biggest surprise of the year."

"Yeah." Steve's voice sounds strangely detached to his own ears. "It surprised me, too."

"Poor James." Caesar wipes something from the corner of his eye. "So noble of him, to sacrifice his life for you."

_Noble_ sounds like such a slimy, crude word at that moment. As though they can just brush Bucky's guilt and hopelessness under a carpet. As though they can pretend they never saw him crying over having to kill Natasha.

"But I think the question we all want to know is—" Caesar leans forward. "Why did he choose _you_, Steve?"

"I don't know," Steve answers hoarsely. Honestly. Bucky may have explained his reasoning, but why _him?_ Why was _he_ chosen to survive, not anyone else?

"Some in our audience might think…well, it's a lot of trouble to go through for someone you don't know…"

Steve stares. Someone in the audience quietly laughs, actually _laughs_, and suddenly he wants to run over and strangle the life out of that person. They were two scared kids clinging to each other in the midst of bloodshed and death, Steve wants to scream. There was nothing _remotely_ romantic about it. And even if there was—if there was some secret Bucky had taken with him to the grave—how _dare_ they look at him like that, eyes gleaming, as though waiting for some juicy piece of gossip to drop.

_No._

_Bucky deserves better._

"I don't know," is all Steve says out loud, echoing himself. "I never asked."

There's a soft but audible sigh of disappointment, and Steve clenches the smooth fabric of his pants in his fists so he won't do anything stupid.

"Well," Caesar says, with something almost like sympathy, "I'm sure you miss him now that he's gone. If you could say one last thing to him, what would it be?"

The question catches Steve off guard. It's the first—and only—humane thing they've asked. He has to stop and think about it, feeling the weight of the audience's eyes on him.

"I'd…I'd tell him…his companionship meant a lot to me. And I wish…he didn't have to die."

The audience gives an "aww" of superficial sympathy. Then it's over. He shakes Caesar's hand once more and leaves the stage behind without a second look.

It's over.

* * *

Except it's not over. It's never going to be over.

Steve leans his chin on his hand and stares blankly out the window of the train, at the passing landscape. It was only a few weeks ago that he rode this train to the Capitol, but already it feels like a lifetime away. He's not the same boy who spent his time thinking about his impending death, and how much he didn't want to die. He's physically different, emotionally changed. He's seen enough horror to give him nightmares for a lifetime.

The landscape blurs into smears of green and blue. His eyelids, suddenly so heavy, drift shut for just a moment…

There's a body lying on the ground, with a knife sticking up from the chest.

Bucky.

Bucky raises his head, and he looks at Steve with dead eyes. "It wasn't your fault."

"You're wrong," Steve mumbles. "If it wasn't for me, you'd...you'd still be…" He presses his palms to his eyes. "I should've stopped you."

"You couldn't," Bucky says, still in a dead voice. "You couldn't stop me."

"I _know,_" Steve suddenly bursts out. "I couldn't do _anything._ I was _useless!_ And I didn't...didn't deserve all of this…"

Bucky reaches out with a blood-covered hand. Steve grabs it, holds on to it with a death grip.

"Remember me," Bucky whispers, blue eyes burning.

Steve's head jerks and he comes to with a gasp. He is...he is in the train, he reminds himself. The Hunger Games are over. He's heading home.

But it's never going to be over. Not for him, and not for the tributes who will be chosen in the future. How many children from the districts will continue to die every year? How many more Careers will be like Bucky—chosen against their will, forced to fight for their survival?

He tries to picture Bucky's face. His smile. And Steve decides—he's tired of not being able to do anything. He doesn't know where to start—how one accidental victor from District Twelve can bring down the entire Capitol—but he's going to do it, and no one is going to stop him.

_"Remember me."_

"I will," Steve murmurs. "I'll never forget."

It's not over.

Not yet.

_fin._


End file.
